


A Good Week

by cjr09



Category: Eldemore
Genre: A fluffy drabble run wild basically, Alternatively titled: Everything is literally always Snafu's fault, Beware, Literally everyone gets at least a mention you have no idea, M/M, Unbeta'd, conisdering I didn't tell anyone about this, even more unbeta'd than usual, who even needs consistency or like any form of explination ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4236567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjr09/pseuds/cjr09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Snafu is bored, bad things happen. Bad things usually happen to the Sealer, since they seem to be the only one who finds him more endearing than annoying.</p><p>That didn't mean Sorren wasn't going to kill him for this.</p><p>He was going to hunt down the Ancient and force him to turn the Sealer back to normal.</p><p>As soon as he could get them to stop crying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Week

“Not happening.”

“Sorren, you’re being ridiculous-”

“Orren?”

“I have rules in my line of business, Ancient, and you’re trying to break one.”

“Orren!”

“You have rules against this?” Faldinreach asks, raising an eyebrow dryly.

“My profession tends not to allow for holding babies.”

“First of all,” Faldinreach sighs, shifting to get a better hold on the squirming child in their grasp, since Sorren was clearly not going to take them, “They’re a toddler, not a baby.”

A toddler that was pouting for Sorren’s attention as Sorren tried not to let the look of adorable indignation get to him.

“Second, I _know_ Shadows, she loves children, she refers to all of you Crows as her own children, there is no way she has rules against you holding children. Do you really want to test me Corvus?”

Sorren scoffs, busy examining the toddler’s all-to-familiar eyes while they pout adorably, still vying for Sorren’s attention. They squirm enough that Faldinreach _has_ to put them down lest they drop them, and the freed toddler makes a bee-line for Sorren, still waving their arms urgently. They slap at Sorren’s boots for attention.

“You big softie, ‘ya want to hold them, don’t ‘ya?” Willy chirps, grinning cheekily from where he’d been surprisingly quiet, considering the amount of people in their shared home at the moment.

Well, pseudo-people. Sorren had no idea that the Ancients were so invested in the Sealer in the first place.

“No,” Sorren lies, very clearly through his teeth.

“No?” The toddler seems to realize that Sorren wasn’t going to hold them, and their bottom lip starts wobbling dangerously, “No wan me, Orren?”

“No no no, I mean- I don’t know how to hold you, or where to put my hands, or even-” Sorren babbles, caught off guard and studiously ignoring the clenching of his heart as the toddler starts to sniff, eyes growing wet, “Please, _please_ stop crying.”

“For my sake, Corvus, just pick them up already,” Verdandi snaps, her ever shifting form switching from tall and feathered to slightly smaller and horned as she shifts race.

“But they’re so…” Sorren hesitates, unable to tear his eyes from the blubbering child, “Small.” _Breakable._

“They’re not that small,” Past- Nawatt, Sorren had been informed- says thoughtfully, patting the toddler on the head in an attempt to soothe them. “They’re pretty filled out, actually, considering the first time they were this size.”

This doesn’t make Sorren feel any better.

Not to mention that of all the things Sorren expected to come from today, it wasn’t that he would suddenly be in charge of a two-year-old Sealer. Then again, anything was possible in his line of work- even more so when the Sealer came into the picture. Even the Glitch- Snafu, apparently- deciding he was bored, breaking into their house, blindsiding them all, and turning the Sealer into a toddler for the week. Now he was hiding away somewhere in the endless cosmos, surely snickering evilly.

“Yin,” Sorren asks, turning to the quasi-human Ancient, and wow, he’d never get used to having them in his house _ever,_ “How did this happen, exactly?”

“I don’t know much of Snafu’s magic- I didn’t know he could even do this- but he did say it was only for a week, and I believe he was telling the truth,” TheYin Ancient explains apologetically, waving their fingers to the toddler to try and get their attention from Sorren.

“Snafu, telling the truth? Novel concept,” Sorren snaps as a baby Sealer tries to climb up his leg. “Is there anything we can do to break it _now?”_

“I don’t think so, Snafu’s just up to his usual mischief, I don’t think there’s any evil intent-”

“And you’re sure about that, are you?” Sorren grouches while the Sealer chews on his boot.

“Snafu meant no harm,” Yin insists seriously, “I’m sure the Sealer will return to their rightful form within the week.”

“But what are we supposed to do with them _now?”_ he asks, voice more than a little shrill, and glares at Willy when he snickers at Sorren’s predicament. Didn’t the pirate know he’d be dealing with this as well?

“Faldin- They’re drooling on me, how do- how do I make them _stop_?”

“Picking them up might be a start,” Faldinreach sighs, rolling their eyes.

The Sealer looks up at him, eyes wide and pleading, and Sorren’s heart flutters despite his best attempts to silence it. He reaches a hand out towards the child before clenching it tightly.

“No, can’t do it.”

“No Orren?” The Sealer whimpers, their little hands grasping at the air for Sorren to pick them up.

“You’re _heartless,_ Corvus,” Verdandi hisses, swooping in and scooping up the Sealer as they wiggle in her arms in an attempt to get back to Sorren, simply bouncing them to try and silence their protests.

“It’s okay, Sealer,” Willy coos at the toddler over the shifting Ancients shoulder, waggling a finger in their face, “Sorren-boo’s just allergic to cuteness. You’re his weakness.”

“Orren’s lergic?”

“Yep,” Willy confirms seriously.

The Sealer looks confused, but they stop squirming long enough to grab onto Willy’s finger and gnaw on it, prompting a curious sniff from Fiore who was cautiously leaning closer to the toddler from her perch on Willy’s shoulders.

Sorren sighs aggressively, spinning on his heel and walking away. He wanted nothing to do with this- no matter how much the Sealer’s belated cries of “No! No go, Orren!” tugged at his heartstrings. He wasn’t good with children- what halfborn assassin could be?- and he accepted this fact about himself. He liked them in _theory_ , but presented with one… they were small and fragile, too little to do much of anything. Especially toddlers; they wobbled around dangerously and drooled like leaky faucets and had just enough speech capability to be loud and annoying and make themselves known but not enough to hold an intelligent conversation with without it becoming ‘what is the appropriate color for this word’.

Yes, toddlers were just dreadful.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Really, Sorren had no idea how he’d gotten himself into this.

“Foun you, Orren!” A toothy Sealer grins, standing on their tip-toes to peer over the couch that Sorren was hiding behind, carefully supported by a chuckling Willy.

“How’d you find me so fast?” Sorren exclaims in mock surprise, and really, he needed to check himself for a head injury or pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming at this point.

The Sealer lets out a fearsome battle cry (read: yelled ‘rawr’) as they scramble over the couch and onto Sorren’s shoulders, landing a bit awkwardly but still smiling and laughing.

Sorren stands up, hoisting the child onto his shoulders for a whirl around the room, making his best approximation of Griffin screeches before flopping onto the couch with a crash, dropping the toddler onto a cushion. The Sealer gives a happy shriek and is immediately set upon by Willy in a tickle attack. They both freeze when they see Verdandi’s shifting frame in the doorway, giving them her best ‘so-you-don’t-like-kids-huh?’ look.

“Screw you, Verdandi,” Willy mutters, and the Sealer smacks a pudgy hand onto his forehead.

“No-no word, Illy!”

“Ow, jeez! Cool it, small fry,” Willy mock whines, and Sorren sits up more fully to face her.

“What do you want, Ancient?”

“I’m just wondering how in the five hours I’ve been gone trying to figure this out, you went from nearly having a panic attack when they drooled on you to piggyback rides and arts and crafts.”

“How did ya’ know about the art project?” Willy interjects, and Verdandi waves a clawed-one-second-not-the-next hand at his head.

“There’s glue and sparkles in your hair.”

“Oh,” Willy says, shaking his head like a wet Dire Wolf and raining sparkles down on the toddler below who shrieks in delight.

“Well, th’ rest a’ the Ancients took off to look for Snafu or a way to reverse this, so we stepped up to the plate. Is that so hard to believe?”

Sorren huffs indignantly, but Willy’s not being entirely truthful.

When they’d taken the child-Sealer to go get magically treated for any clear, magical way to reverse Snafu’s curse, the toddler had absolutely _bawled_ and the Sealer’s sobs had instantly knocked down any and all walls Sorren had tried to put between him and baby Sealer, and he’d scooped the toddler up and basically hadn’t put them down since.

“Well, have you ever made applesauce? Because that’s going to become necessary rather quickly.” Verdandi hold up a shopping bag and- really? How had she gone shopping and not attracted the attention of everyone in Silverport? “Along with some coloring books and some toys, but I’m sure you’ll need to go out and get some soon.”

“Um. Thanks?” Willy says, and it comes out as more of a question than anything, and Verdandi rolls her golden eyes.

“No need,” the Ancient says, absently patting the Sealer on the head as she walks by, headed for the kitchen, and Sorren stands to follow.

“Are you hungry, Sealer?” he asks, and the child beams, smacking their hands into the couch. “Hungry!”

 

* * *

 

 

It had been discovered that the Sealer had trouble with their S’s and occasionally W’s, leading to Sorren becoming ‘Orren’ and Willy becoming ‘Illy’; Fiore was referred to as ‘Iore’ (Leading to Willy making a joke about a donkey in a children’s’ book that led to Fiore ignoring him for the day) and Muzu became ‘Muhzu’, and Soulbird became ‘Oulbir’. The names of the Ancients fared no better, Verdandi becoming simply ‘Dandi’ with Nawatt coming out more like ‘Aat’, Faldinreach becoming ‘aldinpeach’ which was eventually shortened to ‘Peach’, much to the Ancients’ chagrin. The Elderwind became ‘Eldin’, and Mahamayah was doomed from the start, becoming a sort-of ‘Mawah’ noise that could really just mean anything. The Grave Keeper came out more like ‘Grakeeper’ which somehow shortened itself into ‘Grape’, and the Leviathan simply became ‘Levi’, and while they’re not sure how he managed to get in, the Sealer refers to a mysterious ‘Afu’ every once and a while, and to the even further terror of Sorren they occasionally refer to someone known as ‘Mamadows’ which the Ancients have decided means ‘Mama Shadows’.

Only the Yin Ancient was spared the horror of gaining a new name.

The Sealer didn’t seem to have any memories of before they were turned into a toddler, but they were comfortable enough with the Ancients and Sorren that suggested they at least had a vague memory of all of them. Soulbird hadn’t deaged along with their bonded (“You can’t deage a _soul_ , Wilhelm, what are you crazy”) so the experiences that they had had- either the Sealer’s soul or Soulbird themself- had at least let the Sealer know that these people (And quasi-people) were friends.

Sorren was becoming worryingly used to having so many people in his house- Willy was a given, but the Ancients were at least gracious guests, if a little loud and prone to having arguments over the smallest things and rocking the nearby surroundings with the force of their anger.

So, when they all spend the afternoon playing with the Sealer, Sorren doesn’t bat an eye.

The Ancients, he learns, don’t play fair and they don’t like to lose.

Willy keeps the Sealer to his side for most of their impromptu ‘capture the pancakes’ game, and Willy accuses the Leviathan of cheating by using water powers to move the pancakes, the Leviathan accuses Willy of cheating by using the Sealer, Fiore and the crows as scouts, and they start playing a lot more viciously than strictly necessary, and when Willy takes his eyes of the Sealer for a second too long the Leviathan swoops in and steals the Sealer.

The toddler, upon realizing they were being separated from Willy, absolutely _wailed._

This was loud and obnoxious and not at all appreciated by Verdandi, who promptly (literally) throws the Leviathan into the naughty corner for cheating and baby-theft. The Leviathan accuses Willy of cheating first, and Willy responds with ‘well you should stay out of the damn sky then, floating is cheating’ and the Sealer promptly declares, “Illy said a no-no word! Illy go to the no-no corner now?”

Verdandi, all too willing to oblige, promptly shoos Willy to the no-no corner.

While Willy and the Leviathan pouted in the newly designated no-no corner, Verdandi breaks out the coloring books and it’s about this time that Yin returns from looking for Snafu (With no leads, sadly) and gleefully joins them for art time. Willy declares the no-no corner stupid and unnecessary, but the Sealer insists, saying something about “Illy no see! Illy no see!” while all but climbing onto the table to hide their drawing from him. Willy reluctantly stays in the no-no corner, alternating between checking on the Sealer over his shoulder and trading increasingly creative death threats with the Leviathan under his breath.

Willy takes a moment to recall how exactly it was his life ended up like this.

“Illy, Illy look!” The Sealer says, running up to the pseudo-father in question, holding up their drawing proudly.

It’s not exactly legible- the kid’s two, after all- but the red-ish and navy blob, holding a semi-straight grey blob and pink blur next to it made it pretty distinguishable who it was about.

“’S you n Iore! You’re helpin’ me!” they chirp, smiling in their thousand-watt way they did as a child, and Willy pulls the little bundle of sunshine into a hug.

“Are ‘ya _sure_ we can’t just keep them like this?” Willy asks, standing and picking the child up with him, the little Sealer giggling delightedly as he does.

 _“Yes,”_ comes the immediate answer from most of the Ancients, though curiously not Sorren.

“Psst, Illy,” the toddler whispers- as much as a toddler can whisper, anyway- “Wanna help me draw Orren?”

“I’d love to, kiddo, I really would.”

The two descend on the crayons and paper with a gusto.

 

* * *

 

 

After Willy and the Sealer has finished coloring- “They’re _masterpieces, Sorren, look at them”_ \- Nawatt suggested they go to the park to run off the rest of the Sealer’s energy before bedtime.

Sorren’s protests were immediately drowned out by the cries of agreement from the Ancients plus Willy and Fiore, Muzu and Soulbird joining in, probably just to spite Sorren.

Sorren packs a picnic.

Which is how they learned that the Sealer would devour anything that wasn’t vegetables.

“Dun wanna.”

“Come on, Sealer, they’re good for you!” Nawatt tries, “Sorren made them just for you, so you can get big and strong again!”

“Dun _wanna_ , Aat!”

“They didn’t get a nap,” Faldinreach sighs, “And it’s getting late, they’re probably tired.”

“No! No tired, Dandi!”

“Sure you’re not,” Mahamayah says, rolling their eyes, careful to keep one eye on the Gravekeeper who was currently perched atop the very peak of the playset, scaring the other kids.

“’Illy didn’ have any veg’tables!”

“Willy _loves_ his vegetables,” Sorren says, jumping on the chance. “I’m sure he’d love to eat yours right up. Wouldn’t you, Willy?”

“Um.”

_“Wouldn’t you, Willy?”_

“Um. Yep, love ‘em,” Willy says, popping a carrot slice into his mouth at Sorren’s prompting. “Mmm.”

“Illy made a yucky face!” The Sealer accuses, waving their chubby arms wildly and almost losing balance. “Illy dun like ‘em either!”

“No no, I love veggies, could eat ‘em all day,” Willy hastily corrects, shoving a handful more into his mouth and swallowing quickly. “See? Yummy.”

“Dey good?” The Sealer asks, clearly suspicious, and a toddler should not be allowed to be that cute with narrowed eyes and a scrunched up nose.

Willy was having too much fun with this.

“Yep, very good. So good, I might have t’ steal some more…” he trails off, and the Sealer gasps, grabbing their plate hastily and hauling it towards them.

“Bad Illy! Da’s my veggies!”

Willy leans over and ruffles the Sealer’s wispy hair, “Then you’ll have t’ eat ‘em quick, squirt.”

Honestly, it wasn’t a surprise that immediately afterwards the Sealer fell asleep on Sorren’s shoulder.

They carry the toddler home, feeling more than wiped out themselves.

“The Sealer needs to get back soon,” Faldinreach gripes, rubbing a hand down their face, “Their pets are gonna riot, and I think they will actually eat us if we don’t feed them quicker.”

Sorren and Willy agree, albeit reluctantly.

“I’m goin’ _domestic_ b’cause of this Sorren. _Domestic,”_ he whines, keeping his tone down so he doesn’t wake the still sleeping Sealer.

They lay the suddenly-to-small-for-their-bed child down and promptly pass out on the couch.

 

* * *

 

 

Everything was a dark, overwhelming heat, red like blood and fire and a dying, fading heart and screaming _no form of magic nor chains can hold me!_ and too many eyes the color of blood and too many wings the color of death and the smell of sickness, sickness, sickness-

The Sealer woke then, gasping for air like there was still ash in their lungs, nameless, faceless screams of decades, of centuries gone by still ringing in their ears, tears streaming down their face. They shakily get out of their bed- they don’t like it, it’s too big and too empty and too cold- and their mind is still foggy from fear and sleep, they don’t really know where they’re going until they end up in the living room.

Sorren had never been a particularly light sleeper- for obvious reasons- so when something small enters the room, he stirs.

“Hey, munchkin, what are you doing out of-” he stops speaking almost immediately as he registers the little Sealers’ whimpers, and he’s immediately awake, all but shoving Willy off the couch in his rush to get up. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong, did you have a bad dream?”

The toddler can’t even reply, choked sobs becoming full-on wailing as Sorren pulls them into his arms, shushing them as best he can while Willy scrambles to get up.

“I didn’ mean to, Orren, I didn’ mean to,” they sob into his shoulder, and he winces.

“I know, I know. It’s okay, we won’t let anything hurt you,” he soothes, Willy finally seeming to understand what was happening, hovers anxiously, Soulbird cawing in distress as Muzu and Fiore try and get as close to the weeping toddler as they can.

When the Sealer finally started to calm down, Sorren starts making for their room, and the toddler starts crying again.

“No go, Orren! Wanna stay with you, dun make me go!” The Sealer cries, clinging to Sorren with all their might. “I didn’ mean to, dun make me go!”

Sorren caves immediately.

“Come on, then. You’re sleeping with us on the couch, it seems.”

Sorren flops back onto the couch, carefully adjusting himself around Fiore, who decided they were going to cuddle with the little Sealer on his chest, and therefore giving him a mouthful of fur, and the two very concerned crows and a much larger-and-currently-crushing-his-leg Willy.

The Sealer quiets to just a sniff here and there, and Sorren almost thinks they’re asleep until they pipe up, “I didn’ mean to. I didn’.”

Sorren gives them a gentle squeeze and Willy makes a wounded noise in the back of his throat.

“We know, Sealer. We know.”

 

* * *

 

 

The Sealer had nightmares every night for the entire week.

Every night, they seek out Sorren and Willy. They’ve started taking to sleeping in the same room- well, for most of the time, until Willy had made one too many jokes and Sorren had kicked him out- because no matter what, the Sealer wanted to have them both around to hold onto.

Fiore had become a sort of security blanket- quite literally blanketing the small child under her- and Muzu and Soulbird became the targets in hide and seek and friendly, dark shadows that followed and watched and protected.

The Corvus and Amadeus household, when combined with a bit of help from the Ancients, make a shockingly effective child-rearing team.

The Sealer seems happy, if nothing else; they can rarely be found without a smile on their face.

(If the same goes for the ‘parents’ in this situation, well, no one mentions it.)

Ancients are, apparently, chatterboxes, and they’ve gotten visits from everyone from Shadows (Though they don’t see her, ever, which makes Sorren very concerned) to Seraphina (“I wanted to know if this was true of if Verdandi was pulling my leg. And I made them an onesie; let me try it on them.”) and Sorren and Willy were beyond exhausted on the best of days.

It feels worth it, though, and Sorren can’t help but wonder if this is why normal families raise children in the first place.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When the Sealer wakes up, they have no idea where they are.

A look around the sparse bedroom reveals it to be Sorren’s, probably, going on the meticulous cleanliness of it all and the large hat flopped over a dresser.

What was going on?

The Sealer rolls themselves out of the bed, and well, that’s a whole new mystery.

Were they wearing a _onesie?_

_A onesie with cartoon versions of the Ancients, Fiore, Muzu and Soulbird on it?_

The Sealer has no idea when they got this but they know they’re _never taking it off._

“Hey, munchkin, if you don’t get your lazy tush out of bed I’m eating all your pancakes!” Willy calls, and again, what?

Well, they’ve never been one to stand down from a challenge to their pancakes.

The kitchen’s a veritable mess- there’s flour everywhere, syrup is covering a few counters, and they immediately recognize this as Willy’s cooking, because Sorren would actually have a heart attack if he saw this.

Willy was indeed standing in the kitchen, wearing Sorren’s ‘Kiss The Cook’ apron, and while that’s not an entirely uncommon sight, seeing the vast majority of their Ancient friends packed around the table is.

Suddenly, Willy is staring at the Sealer like they’ve grown a second head.

“ _Sealer?”_

“Yes?”

“But- you’re _old!”_

“You’re older than I am?” The Sealer replies, vaguely offended.

“No, I mean you’re not… y’know, tiny,” he says, holding a hand to his knee height.

“I haven’t been for a while?”

“D’ ya’ not remember?” Willy asks, putting down his spatula and striding over to the Sealer, eyeing them warily.

“Remember?”

“Snafu turned you into a toddler for the week. Also, Willy, your pancakes are burning, you gotta watch that,” the Elderwind says, and Willy darts back over to the now-flaming pancakes.

“Snafu can do that? I was a… toddler?” The Sealer asks, joining the Ancients at the table, and Verdandi makes a noise of agreement.

“Weirder things have happened to us,” she says, and well, the Sealer has to agree on that as Willy dumps a cup of water over the pancakes.

“Besides, Corvus was almost nice there for a while, so it wasn’t all bad.”

“I resent that, and welcome back, Sealer,” Sorren says as he appears in the doorway, words oddly clipped as he watches Willy scramble in the kitchen with disdain.

“Please, they went full-on domestic, Sealer. Your tiny butt carted them around like they were your own damn teddy bears,” Faldinreach says, rolling their eyes.

“That’s a no-no word, Peaches, off to the corner,” Willy says, really without thinking, and there’s a few beats of silence before Willy uncharacteristically _blushes._

“In my defense, I learned the Sealer wasn’t two anymore about a’ minute ago, so you know what, _screw_ you guys,” he gripes, and the Sealer laughs into their hand as they nick some bacon from Nawatt’s plate.

“That’s a no-no word Wilhelm, off to the corner,” Faldinreach snickers and Willy flicks his spatula at them, taking off Sorren’s apron and huffing his way to his bedroom to change clothes, Sorren taking over in the kitchen with a snort.

“The end of an era,” Nawatt says, and Yin raises her glass in a toast.

“That one week the Corvus-Amadeus household was normal.”

“That was a good week,” Verdandi agrees, already turning her attention back to her food.

Well. Weirder things had happened.

Sorren makes everyone their round of pancakes and the Ancients take off (“We’ve done above and beyond our summoning requirements, Sealer, don’t push your luck”) and leave them to clean up.

The kitchen returns to spotless, the toys are packed up to be sold, (Except for a few that the Sealer squirrels away to their room) the pictures are taken off the wall (Shoved into drawers to be fawned over later, but the Sealer didn’t need to know that) and soon enough, everything’s back to the approximation of normal that passes in their house.

The Sealer might not remember it, but they’re pretty sure it was a good week, as well.

**Author's Note:**

> What even is ending this thing I don't even
> 
> I think I got the idea going through some old fanfiction I had bookmarked but I don't even remember man I am running on no sleep
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my super-secret story! This thing was a monster, let me tell you, it got out of control way too fast. Leave a comment or a kudos or whatever and let me know what you thought~


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